CIRS: Cluster infall regions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Infall patterns and mass profiles

We use the Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to test the ubiquity of infall patterns around galaxy clusters and measure cluster mass profiles to large radii. The Cluster and Infall Region Nearby Survey (CAIRNS) found infall patterns in nine clusters, but the cluster sample was incomplete. Here we match X-ray cluster catalogs with SDSS, search for infall patterns, and compute mass profiles for a complete sample of X-ray-selected clusters. Very clean infall patterns are apparent in most of the clusters, with the fraction decreasing with increasing redshift due to shallower sampling. All 72 clusters in a well-defined sample limited by redshift (ensuring good sampling) and X-ray flux (excluding superpositions) show infall patterns sufficient to apply the caustic technique. This sample is by far the largest sample of cluster mass profiles extending to large radii to date. Similar to CAIRNS, cluster infall patterns are better defined in observations than in simulations. Further work is needed to determine the source of this difference. We use the infall patterns to compute mass profiles for 72 clusters and compare them to model profiles. Cluster scaling relations using caustic masses agree well with those using X-ray or virial mass estimates, confirming the reliability of the caustic technique. We confirm the conclusion of CAIRNS that cluster infall regions are well fitted by Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) and Hernquist profiles and poorly fitted by singular isothermal spheres. This much larger sample enables new comparisons of cluster properties with those in simulations. The shapes (specifically NFW concentrations) of the mass profiles agree well with the predictions of simulations. The mass in the infall region is typically comparable to or larger than that in the virial region. Specifically, the mass inside the turnaround radius is on average 2.19 +/- 0.18 times that within the virial radius. This ratio agrees well with recent predictions from simulations of the final masses of dark matter halos.